


Head in the clouds

by Vandereer



Category: One Piece
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Marco is a massive asshole, Modern Era, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Shanks is real sad but it'll get better promise, ex-army shanks, flight instructor marco
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28746048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vandereer/pseuds/Vandereer
Summary: After being discharged from his army medic job, Shanks is at a loose end. His last resort is a job interview at a flight school in the middle of nowhere, where he meets a total shithead called Marco.
Relationships: Akagami no Shanks | Red-Haired Shanks & Portgas D. Ace, Akagami no Shanks | Red-Haired Shanks/Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco, Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco & Portgas D. Ace
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	Head in the clouds

**Author's Note:**

> idk man I wrote this in like 3 days I JUST WANT MORE MARCOSHANKS NO ONE IS ON THIS BOAT WITH ME!!
> 
> This is a modern au but it doesn't have anything to do with my other modern au okay, love you.  
> enjoy.

Shanks never thought he would end up like this; sitting in a dingy studio apartment surrounded by job applications and fliers. He thought he had chosen his career path as a teen and been done with it - no more job hunting for the rest of his life. But now he was a sad thirty-four year old and struggling to keep his head above water, like he was back in college again.

After hundreds of failed applications, Shanks was at the end of his rope. Which is probably why he found himself talking to some lazy-sounding teenager with a southern drawl, in the hopes that _someone_ would take him on.

“You’re _sure_ this is a quiet job?” Shanks said.

The voice on the other end of the phone line chuckled. “Yeah, it’s relaxed alright!”

Shanks wasn’t sure if that was sarcasm or not. “Just making sure. I kinda had a bad time with my last job.”

“How much of a bad time?”

Shanks cleared his throat and toyed with the tied-up sleeve of his shirt, covering the stump where his arm used to be. He didn’t want to risk losing a nice, quiet job in the country by making these guys think he was incapable or anything. “A lot of stress, you know?”

_And getting my truck flipped over and almost dying._

He had just come out of a long stay in the hospital, longer than he needed to heal from his amputation. They had diagnosed him with PTSD after the crash, and the death of his co-worker who hadn’t been as lucky. 

Not that Shanks would describe himself as ‘lucky’. He didn’t remember a lot, but they told him he had been screaming mindlessly when they pulled him out of the twisted remains of the ambulance.

“Well, come on over tomorrow and I’ll show you the ropes. Anything else you wanna ask me?”

  
Shanks had already decided he wasn’t going to let them know about the arm, or the panic attacks, until he got his foot in the door by showing up. “No.”

“Alright, see you tomorrow! You got the directions, right?”

“Uh, yeah. There’s a bus stop nearby?”

“Well, it’s still a ways off from there. I can pick ya up if you want?”  
  


Shanks winced, already sick of being treated so much differently than he was before the crash. He missed driving. He missed feeling like an _adult._ He came so close to refusing. “Yes, that would be kind of you.”

  
“No prob! As long as you’re okay with bikes.”

“S-sure.”

  
“See you then!”

Shanks hung up, feeling an acidic pit open up in his stomach as he shoved the fliers off his bed. If he didn’t get this job, he wasn’t sure what the hell awaited him. 

“Hope they don’t want a drug test, anyway.” Shanks muttered, as he leaned back and reached for his bong. He chuckled as he lit it. “I’ll tell ‘em it’s medicinal.”

* * *

  
  


Bright and early, and already the sun was shining down fiercely. Bugs and dust motes danced among the brown grasses by the side of the road as Shanks waited. The bus had dropped him off in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. 

The guy on the phone - Shanks forgot his name, the guy with the twangy accent - had warned him it was far out, but Shanks at least hoped he would be able to see the place. Heat lines rose up from the road as a bike spluttered towards him.

A young man waved as he slowed the bike to a stop. He wore a bright orange cowboy hat and a tasselled leather coat that his half-grown frame didn’t quite fill. The flame-patterned cowboy boots were just there to complete the look, Shanks supposed.

Shanks almost couldn’t hear him yelling over the growl of the engine. “You Shanks? Hop on!”

The young man barely waited for a confirmation and didn’t get off the bike, just jabbed a thumb at the seat behind him. Even if it was the wrong guy, it wouldn’t be the most awkward interaction Shanks had had while job hunting lately. He got on.

Shanks held back a yelp as the young man suddenly swerved the bike around. He had a split second to choose whether to cling onto the young man’s leather jacket or cling to life on the handle behind him. He chose the former, awkwardly clinging to the leather ruffles and hoping he didn’t mind. After a few minutes of driving, he was starting to feel like he was holding a horse’s mane as it rampaged out of control underneath him. 

“The boss wanted to come and meet ya himself,” the young man yelled, “but one of our clients is kind of a prima donna! Wants to fly as soon as the sun starts comin’ up!”

“What’s the owner like?” Shanks shouted.

“Ah, he ain’t around much these days - gettin’ old!” the young man bellowed back, half-turning to grin at Shanks. He prayed that the kid would get his damn eyes back on the road. “He mostly leaves operations up to the boss! I’ll introduce ya and you can make your own mind up I guess!”

The young man drove onto an airfield as scruffy and overgrown as the fields surrounding it. Some of the airstrip was hidden underneath a covering of dusty earth. A large building of concrete and sheet metal seemed to be where the young man was headed. As Shanks willed his hand to hold on for just a while longer, he took in the various small planes. Some were for only one or two people, but here and there, a helicopter or a sleek private jet were parked.

As the young man slowed the bike down, Shanks watched as a bright blue aircraft made touchdown on the strip. He was distracted as the bike lurched to a halt and his front smashed into the young man’s back.

The young man hopped off the bike and grinned as Shanks got up a little more slowly and shakily. He tipped his cowboy hat at Shanks and offered a freckled hand to him. “Nice to meet ya! Hope the ride wasn’t too rough. I’m the mechanic around here.”

“Right.” Shanks said, hoping that the airplanes ran a lot smoother than his bike did. He took the man's hand to shake it, surprised at the strength behind it.

Shanks looked off to one side, feeling awkwardness bubble up inside him. He had completely forgotten the young man’s name from when he had told him over the phone. Names had been a weak spot for him ever since the crash, and he'd learned to simply ask instead of blundering into an awkward situation later. 

“Sorry I forgot your name - having trouble with that lately.”

  
“No worries, it’s Ace!”

Ace eyed the stump of his arm as he released his hand, but his lazy smile didn’t fade. There was something familiar about the sharpness of his features that Shanks couldn’t quite put his finger on. “I think the boss is still in the air, but he said you can wait in the air traffic control room.”

Ace pointed him towards a building little more than a wood and sheet metal shed sitting on the airstrip. Shanks groaned as he turned back to Ace for confirmation that that was the building he meant, but he had already swaggered off somewhere. 

“Maybe he had a rock concert to get to.” Shanks muttered to himself, as he started walking towards the control room.

As Shanks walked in, the rattle of an overhead fan greeted him. It wasn't doing much to battle the stuffy heat and he was already tugging the collar of his shirt away from his neck. A coffee cup was sitting dangerously close to an expensive looking rig of controls, but there was no one around and the only headset was lying unoccupied.

The headset buzzed with static as Shanks walked near it. “Ground control, this is Bluebird, having some problems up here, over.”

Shanks frowned, looking around to see if anyone was about to rush out from the bathroom to receive the call. As he waited, the voice got more insistent. “I said we’re having problems up here! Can anyone read me, yoi? Over.”

“Hello? Is anyone gonna take this!?” Shanks called out, hesitantly walking towards the headset. His heartbeat was already starting to thump in his throat and the stuffy room was causing sweat to roll down his forehead. When no one answered him, he picked it up. “Uh, Bluebird this is ground control, can I help somehow?”

“I THINK WE’RE GOING DOWN! MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY!”

Shanks clutched the nearest wall, sure that he was about to have the mother of all panic attacks when he noticed something off about the noise on the other end. “Are you making _fake crashing noises?”_

“FWOOSH, boooooom, ahh oh no! The mini fridge caught fire, yoi!”

Shanks put down the headset as he heard giggling coming from somewhere.

Another room was tacked on to the control room, half-hidden behind a wooden wall. Inside was a kind of lounge with some ratty sofas and an old TV. 

As Shanks walked in, two people looked up at him, a small person with a mop of silky brown hair who seemed to be the source of the giggling. The other a blonde man holding a headset, who Shanks was pretty certain had just become his mortal enemy.

“Ground control this is Bluebird, we seem to have fixed the issue, nothing to worry about, over.”

“Nothing to worry about, _huh_?” Shanks said with a sharp half-grin, still feeling manic from the adrenaline pumping furiously in his veins. 

‘Bluebird’ gave him a bright smile, his hooded eyes closing. “Just a little prank I like to play on newbies. They find out pretty fast if they want to work here or not after that.”

“You’re the boss then?” Shanks groused, already feeling tired from fighting off a panic attack.

“Yup, name’s Marco.” He gestured to the empty couch shoved up against the other corner of the room. “Please, sit yoi. You want a drink?”

Shanks glared at him, considering walking out. He couldn't fault them for not knowing about his panic attacks when he had made the decision to keep it a secret. He shook his head and sat down. 

“You sure? Your colour is a bit hectic.”

“I’m fine.” Shanks said, scrubbing at his sweaty forehead with his sleeve. He looked over his new nemesis while quietly trying to get his breathing back to normal. He wore a simple pair of brown slacks and a blue button up shirt advertising his business: Whitebeard Flying School. His blonde hair was thick on top and shaved at the sides, in a pattern that almost resembled a pineapple.

Shanks looked into his deep blue eyes and decided he had the kind of face that was just begging to be punched.

“Well then, since you’re still here let’s get to business! Do you have any previous experience as a radio operator?”

“I did a stint working medical dispatch.”

“Hospital?”

“Army.”

Marco made an interested noise and leaned back, giving Shanks an appraising look. “Must be why Ace said you worked in a stressful environment, but he didn’t say why.”

Shanks rubbed the scar under his eye as it gave a sudden itch. “I was an evac driver in the army. I was operating the radios before that. I was discharged after a bomb hit my truck and I lost my arm.”

Marco’s easy smile started to drop, his face paled. “So any harmless pranks about a possible dangerous situation would-”

Shanks tried to keep his face set, even though the petrified look on Marco’s face was beyond hilarious. “Trigger awful flashbacks and potentially put me back in the hospital? Yeah.”

“Oh my god. I’m really sorry.”

Shanks folded one leg over the other and tilted his head with a smile. “So, what’s the pay like around here?”

* * *

Shanks walked out of the control room, satisfied that he had wrung as many pennies out of the situation as he could. Marco was considerably more sober as he shook Shanks’ hand on the way out of the airfield.

“You can start in a week. Oh and I can talk Ace into giving you a lift from the bus stop whenever you want. He’s happy enough to get a chance to ride the damn thing.”

“That’s most generous of you. Give young Ace my thanks.”

Marco pursed his lips, rubbing the back of his neck like a schoolboy. “I really am sorry.” 

“Ah, don’t feel bad!” Shanks smacked him on the shoulder, hard, and put a hint of a threat into his smile. “I’ll be seeing you soon, _Bluebird.”_

Marco couldn’t quite meet his eyes as he walked away. 

Despite everything, Shanks felt pretty good. He had gotten himself a job, and gotten the better of a dickhead at the same time. 

_Maybe this’ll be fun after all._

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks to kiite and eclecticwrites for beta reading! let me know what u would like to see from this fic maybe? kisses.


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